Cats And Alleys
by chemicalflashes
Summary: She listened to him without protesting. Maybe Rory was right and maybe she was just imagining things due to her tiredness. Maybe it was just her old, silly head playing tricks. So she went back to lying in the bed. Amy dreamt of omnipresent cat eyes and vividly coloured bowties. She even saw a ginger cat wearing a blue bowtie. [Set after TATM. Slight Amy/Eleven]


**Okay, so I am working on two DW oneshots right now. This is one of them. It's based on my imagination of what might have happened after 'The Angels Take Manhattan'.**

 **/Could be completely cannon for all I know./**

 **There's an All The Wrong Questions reference in here. Let's see if any of my readers are Volunteers ;)**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own Doctor WHO or the TARDIS. It's very sad. Also the poetry belongs to e.e. Cummings.**

 **Unedited**

 **•**

 **Cats And Alleys**

 **•**

Where was she?

She opened her eyes to find the answer and found fog ridden morning light. She hoped she had come to the same time as Rory. She was standing in a dingy back alley and a number of grey street cats were prowling in the corner. The buildings seemed old and abandoned and an air full of desolate feelings roamed about them.

Amy sighed. What else was she supposed to do? She had just died and her raggedy man could never come to see her again. Well, Rory was worth it, she supposed but she wasn't very sure about it. Oh stop it Amelia, she thought. You love Rory, of course you would follow him anywhere. _Amelia_ **.** She had thought of herself as Amelia. Only the Doctor called her Amelia and even then only when he was beside with worry for her. This train of thought made her cringe with sadness.

 _Note to self: Never call yourself Amelia again. Never let anyone call you Amelia either._

She moved forward slowly; the cold morning air was pricking her skin which was barely shielded by the thin cotton shirt she was wearing. By the nippy chill in the air, she could guess that she had landed sometime in November, somewhere in New York. The cats were looking at her curiously. For the first time she felt that she was in a real adventure all on her own. An adventure in which she knew that the Doctor would not be close behind her to help. What if her raggedy man had been right? What if she had missed her Centurion by years?

These questions frightened her.

Get scared later Pond, she thought. Focus on the situation at hand first.

She might have hallucinated at that moment but later she would tell herself over and again that it had been very much real. At the end of the alley, just where the street cats were loitering around, was a silhouette of a man that she knew too well. She rushed forward thinking, _you— you wonderful, impossible, madman_. She ran forward with all her might and reached the spot only to find no one. Instead she found herself staring right into the gawking face of her husband who happened to be standing right across the street.

She glanced at the cats for a split second and found them glancing back at her. Maybe they were alien cats who knew that she was slowly going mad. 'Stop it, Ame— Amy! You've: travelled too much with the Doctor for you own good,' she muttered to herself, looking at Rory who was now crossing the street. He looked overjoyed to see her and sheer relief was flowing across his face. The cats were still looking at her, as if trying to convey her an urgent message. She forgot about them and their eerily human (or was it Time Lord?, she wondered later) eyes when Rory enveloped her in his warm arms.

'I thought you were never going to turn up!' he whispered into her fiery hair. 'I have been waiting for about an year and five months now in the Thirties. Blimey, how time passes!' he told her when she pulled away after about a minute of hugging.

But she was too shocked to directly reply to his statement.

'Did you see a man there?' she asked, pointing in the direction where she had sighted the suspiciously familiar shadow.

'Yes, yes there was a man lurking in a bowler hat 'round the corner but he went away before I could reach you. I couldn't see his face— it's so foggy here. Did he do something? Did he hurt you, Amy? Tell me!'

Rory. Strong, protective Rory. Not necessarily always clever but always supportive and warm.

'No, no, nothing like that...' she said as she caught hold of his hand with her own and walked towards her new, adventure-less life (Or so she supposed). Maybe it had been some random person who's shadow she had sighted. It was the Thirties after all; everyone used to wear suits and jackets those days. The cats were still looking at her and one of them decided to meow softly. It was almost as if she could sense tones of deep sadness in there. Maybe they really were alien. Oh, she really needed to stop thinking all this gibberish nonsense; Rory would think that she has gone mental if she would tell him and this time even she would not doubt it.

The walk to home was quite eventless. Rory talked with her and she replied to him but her mind was busy wandering down another path. _Whose_ shadow had that been? Meanwhile he told her that he had been taking his morning walk and she nodded back reflexively. She did not know if he had noticed her listlessness but if he did, he did not comment upon it.

Her new house was unlike the one she had in 2012. Strange how she had to think of the future in the past tense, she wondered. This one was a lot smaller and the front door was not TARDIS blue because Rory thought that they completely needed to forget about their other life. 'Amy, it's time to start a new chapter. Turn a new leaf so as to say,' he had remarked when she had asked about the door colour, which happened to be a faded maroon (and it reminded her of her first visit to her first psychiatrist) How could he expect her to start a new chapter just yet? _How could he?_ How could he expect her to suddenly forget something so unforgettable, so indelible? It had only been about an hour for her in New York, 1938 and he wanted her to let go of her raggedy man just like that?

It was easy for him to say all this, she realised. He must have gone through this phase months ago and now he was normal. But how could she, Amy Pond, ever be normal without her Doctor? The Doctor had always been a constant in her making-no-sense life. And now, even he was beyond her reach.

Right now Rory was downstairs in the kitchen making some tea. The bedroom window was open to let in the air and she was lying on the large, comfortable bed. Amy had just decided to go check up on Rory when she saw a turtoise shell cat peering intently at her. It was hanging there by the sill because of the tight grip of its claws. For a moment she thought she was hallucinating again. But then she got up and it was still there, just _gawking_ at her. She ran downstairs, a little freaked out.

'Rory, there's a cat hanging on the bedroom window!' she shouted. 'You have to see it now,' she said and forcefully took hold of her husband's arm to lead him upstairs. She got there to see the curtains drawn with a light wind blowing in through the still open window. Could cats even draw curtains? The possibility did not seem far fetched to her mind.

'Now, now dear,' he began in a way a tired parent might talk to his over excited child. 'You're stressed from the day's activities. Rest now. Sleep would do you good and stop you from over thinking things.'

She listened to him without protesting. Maybe Rory was right and maybe she was just imagining things due to her tiredness. Maybe it was just her old, silly head playing tricks. So she went back to lying in the bed. Amy dreamt of omnipresent cat eyes and vividly coloured bowties. She even saw a ginger cat wearing a blue bowtie.

It was one of the most fitful naps of her life.

 **•**

Two weeks— she had spent two weeks in the days of the past. Nothing extraordinary had happened and certainly no cat was checking up on her. All had been fine, that is until today.

It had been a bad day because it was too _boring_ to sit in the house and do no work at all; she had to find some work yet. Amy was full of aimless irritation at the world since Rory was being his usual "let go" self after coming back from work and truth be told, even she wanted to be that "let go" person but she just could not. So she walked right out of the house in the cold evening air to spend a little time apart from Rory, alone with her grief and hollowness in the alleys of New York.

She decided to do a little grocery shopping in the process and hence went to find her way through the perplexing streets of her neighborhood. Normally she was good with navigation but recently her sense of direction had begun to deteriorate. Moreover, it was a new place for her too. She had not realised that the local market was far away from her house. It only irritated her more when she found out that she had been walking in circles for the past thirty minutes. All the buildings were monotonous and were either brick red or plain grey and they confused. There was no landmark and she was lost.

She was highly piqued that she could not call for help because what use were mobile phones when no mobile towers were around? There was no one around to ask for directions either. Amy was mad at herself for choosing to embark upon such a journey on such a foggy evening. She wondered if her life could have been different if she had chosen to stay with the Doctor. Oh yes, it would have been great. All of space and time would have been hers to explore and moreover she would never get lost because he would be right behind her.

But had to admit that she would have missed Rory. Somewhat.

A muffled voice broke her thoughts.

'Are you lost?'

It was a man— a man who she could swear upon fish fingers and custard was not there a moment before, or maybe she had just missed him in her ponderings. He was standing against the wall in the shadows and his head was bent down. He was strange man; his jaw and nose were covered by a long woollen scarf and that explained why his voice was muffled. He wore a soft felt hat and she could not see his forehead and eyes. He reminded her of The Invisible Man.

Usually, she would not have replied, ignored the person (because her aunt had taught her that such men were usually no good) and went on her way regardless of the fact whether she knew it or not. But something felt inexplicably right about talking to this mysterious stranger. She did not know what but it just did.

'Umm... yeah, I think. Do you know the way to the local market?'

It turned out that he did and he was quite helpful about it too. Her gut feelings had been right but she had to admit that he was a stranger stranger; he never took of his scarf while speaking and he never looked up from the ground too. After he had told her every possible twist and turn, Amy looked away from him, inspecting the path she had to walk. When she turned back to say "Thank you so much for helping me", there was no one there. Just plain old film of fog. It was as if he had never been there in the first place.

Had she just encountered an apparition?

 **•**

Was the Doctor missing her right now, as she twisted and tumbled in her bed with Rory snoring softly beside her? Possibly. He had said that she was seared onto his hearts.

Amy never knew what to make of that conversation. 'You're seared onto my hearts, Amelia Pond,' he had murmured as she had nuzzled her head into the crook of his neck. Was it something someone would say to their friend? Probably. Probably not. One never knew with the Doctor.

Because of her restlessness, Amy got up just to gaze out of the window for no particular reason. She peered outside through the curtains. She saw a ginger cat stationed right below her window and it was looking straight up at her. What was it with street cats and her these days? Were they following her for food or something? She was highly doubtful of that.

 **•**

Six months had passed since she came here. In these six months, she often found cats stalking her or keeping a watch on her and her house. She accepted them reluctantly and slowly came to even adore them. Maybe they saw a friend in her, she supposed. She never saw the man again though.

It was morning and Rory had just gone to his work when the bell rung. It was the postman. He gave her three letters. Two were for Rory regarding some official business while one was her. It was from the publisher; Amy had recently written a collection of short stories. The publisher was interested in talking money with her. She was just beaming at the letter when she heard a soft knock on the door. She went to open it, thinking that probably the postman had come to deliver a letter he had missed earlier.

There was no postman. There was only a cat, specifically the ginger one. It had a letter in it's mouth. She looked at the cat curiously and the cat stared right back at her just as curious. Gingerly she took the letter from its mouth, half afraid that it might bite her fingers.

There was nothing extraordinary about the envelope. There was just a blue border running along it's flap. Amy opened it hurridely. Blue always meant something. Suddenly it all fell into place. Her heart was telling her it had to be the Doctor. Who else sent letters through cats? Maybe, maybe, maybe, just maybe—

It was. It was him.

 _(i do not know what it is about you that closes_

 _and opens;only something in me understands_

 _the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)_

 _nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands_

 _Gotcha, always._

 _Yours_

She did not know what to do: laugh or cry and run or sit. What she knew was that he could be somewhere near and she was desperate to see him; just one glance would do. The cat— the cat could take her to him. But the cat was long gone. She ran out of the house in her despair but there was no one in the alley. She looked up at the sky in the way of a person hoping for a miracle might because in that moment she was that person and she wanted the Doctor to come back to him. She desperately wanted to say, "Hello, raggedy man." because at last she had understood what he had tried to mean when he had told her that she was seared onto his hearts.

For a split second she thought she saw the glint of field glasses from atop a distant tree across the road from her house but more probably it had been caused by a tear in her eye, for now she had slumped down to the ground and was crying profusely.

 **•**

The Doctor lowered his field glasses and withdrew himself softly behind the lushy branches as soon as Amy started to cry. He wanted to rush to her to comfort her but he couldn't risk time ripping apart the whole of New York and all he do was sigh and smile wistfully.

Oh sweet Amy. She would never know how much he had waited for her. It was 3239 years, 7 months and 11 days. And since the TARDIS had refused to land in New York in any time period except after 2012 and beyond, he had to park her in London and make her invisible. It was a long journey to there.

But it didn't matter. Amelia Pond had got his letter. She knew and that was what mattered.

That was how it ended.

•

 **Okay, so here are the unexplained facts:**

 **1\. Why cats?**

 **Because the Doctor can speak cat, horse and baby. Horses and babies are obviously not fitting in with the setting of New York, 1938. So there you go, cats.**

 **2\. Why didn't time and space rip apart when Amy met the Doctor?**

 **Because technically she wasn't meeting him.**

 **3\. It is not cannon! You said it was completely cannon. Your fic puts the Doctor's age around 4000 years but in 'The Rings Of Akhaten' Clara says he's over a 1000 years old. EX-PLAIN!**

 **Okay I admit it that fact is not cannon at all. But you have to admit that rest of the story fits pretty much with cannon.**

 **4\. When did the Doctor start loving Amy?**

 **Since the beginning.**

 **Now will you please review?**


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